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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

99 Miata Build, Part 12 : VICTORY!

It took lots of help and even more time, but the Miata finally has a fully upgraded suspension, rollbar, and fresh clutch.

That silver bar is a block of aluminum that reinforces the sway bar mounts. More details to come in a future technical post.

On Thursday the new control arm, and replacement shock were installed along with some welding done (thanks again to Chuck!) to add some additional reinforcement brackets to the end-link mounts.

The bigger sway bar also needed some additional reinforcement on the mounts that attach it to the lower control arm (just to the left of the yellow shock).

A few more stickers were installed.

Mazda logo on the rear quarter and Mazdaspeed logo on the front.

And the car was given a fresh alignment just in time for the Sunday autocross with SCR.

Lots more stickers on the rear window.

I have to say, it's a whole new car. The numerous upgrades had the car handling better than ever and the shifts were smooth as butter...well, if butter had a very satisfying mechanical clunk as you sliced through it with a shift knob. The end result is a first place finish for me for the first time with SCR! Victory over the installation issues we encountered and also in racing.

The new rollbar needed some mozzarella sticks so we stopped at Sonic for food and a photo.

Great results as the NMS South team closes the gap to first place for the season. There's a few more bugs to shake down and the clutch needs a few more miles to thoroughly break in before the big track weekend with NASA in May, but the car has come a LONG way since October. Stay tuned for some future technical posts about the upgrades completed to date and why they've been chosen.